Midland Elementary to reopen Wednesday

POWAY -- Teacher Nancy Moiseve, who has worked out of a mobile
classroom for the last 13 years, will be one of the first to teach
at the new Midland Elementary School when it reopens Wednesday.

After more than 20 months of construction, the oldest school
will be the newest in the Poway Unified School District, which has
33 campuses and more than 32,000 students.

The $23 million campus will be the district's first two-story
elementary school and will include a library, separate kindergarten
facility, administration building, multipurpose auditorium and
courtyard.

The elementary school at 13910 Midland Road, built in 1925, was
razed in August 2004 to be completely rebuilt. Its 540 students and
their teachers have been sharing a campus with Garden Road
Elementary School until last Friday.

"For the last year and a half, I've been running back and forth
between two schools," said Midland Principal MaryLou Wilson. "I'm
excited to be in one place."

On Monday, while Midland students were enjoying a couple of days
off, construction crews were putting the final touches on the
school and teachers were moving back in.

Moiseve, who teaches second grade, was decorating the freshly
painted walls of a classroom strikingly different from her old
one.

"We've just had a lot of changes," she said. "I never had water,
never had a sink. … We didn't have technology. We didn't have
phones for years. We didn't even have an intercom system. (And) I
used to shut my filing cabinets with my hip."

Now, the classrooms have new filing cabinets, wall cabinets,
desks, book cases and a connecting computer lab.

"Now we can take our children to a lab," Moiseve said. "It's
just amazing what we are going to be able to give them that they
didn't know other (district) children were getting."

Midland is part of a 10-year construction program to bring older
district schools up-to-date with the newer ones. The $251 million
program is paid for by Proposition U, a $198 million bond, and $70
million in state funds. After two failed attempts, the bond was
passed by voters in November 2002.

"I never thought I'd see this day," said Moiseve, who worked on
all three bond campaigns. "It was difficult because you had people
you had to convince."

On Monday, construction crews were testing fire alarms, hooking
up multimedia projectors and installing carpet in the school
auditorium. Parent Jeanie Alford said she and other parents are
already making plans for their children's fifth-grade
promotion.

Alford was on campus, along with other parents and volunteers,
to help teachers get ready for Midland to reopen.

"I'm the copy gal today," she said, "so they are ready on
Wednesday to teach."

Alford, who has two children at Midland, was a student at the
school in the 1970s.

"It's a little weird to see it now," she said. "But it's nice to
have a brand new school."

Wilson said she's excited about the new campus but it won't be
complete until Wednesday.

"It's a building now," she said. "It will be a school when the
kids get here."